VICTORIA — B.C. Conservative MLA Harman Bhangu says he will “most likely” run for the leadership of the provincial Opposition party, if the yet-to-be-released rules for the race are to his liking.

Bhangu, a former trucker who was elected as MLA for Abbotsford-Langley in 2024, says he will make his final decision once the party has released the rules, which he expects in the second or third week of the new year.

His signal comes after Bhangu’s friend Aaron Gunn, who is a federal Conservative MP, said on Christmas Eve that he would not seek the B.C. Conservative leadership.

Bhangu — who was one of five MLAs to vote in favour of banning land acknowledgments by public employees in October — says he’s been making a lot of calls and “a lot of folks” have told him that they would back his candidacy, adding the likelihood of him running “is pretty high up there.”

He says his final decision will also take into account the possibility of a snap election, because the winning candidate must be able to “raise a bunch of money” quickly.

Bhangu first ran for the B.C. Conservatives in 2022 and served as the party’s vice-president before it rose to contend for government under former leader John Rustad in the 2024 election.

He says he would focus on economic issues if he were to run, citing his background in trucking.

The list of names linked to the race is long, but Bhangu says nobody has officially announced their candidacy yet because, like him, they are waiting for the rules to drop and nobody wants to sign a contract without knowing what they are buying.

Bhangu had said earlier this month that he would not seek the party leadership as long as Gunn was in contention, saying he would not “run against a friend I’ve stood shoulder-to-shoulder with since the beginning.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2025.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press